55 gal. Reservoir question

[igeorge]

Hi all Im new to community!

I got a reservoir question. I got a 55 gallon black foodgrade plastic barrel. I have gone back and forth after reading different threads. Now I don't know what to do. At first I thought it was a no brainer to have a 55 gal res and I would keep nutes in it and top it off as needed. How easy! I have a 396 gph pump moving the water and a air stone in the barrel. I read you shouldn't add the nutes and I read you should. Which is it for my setup? I use 5 gal bubble buckets with air stones in the water. Works fine. I have the 5 buckets connected to another 5 gal as a sub res. On the 55 gal I use a aquarium multi airline adjuster mounted on the side of the barrel to drip water into the sub reservoirs like an I-V in the hospital. Works great! as much or as little drip as I want!

I want to keep my nutes fresh I think..? and do water changes every 10-14 days. Im now thinking that I want to set up a small 5-6 gallon res to drip my sub res's and keep everything fresh... SO now I have this big reservoir just sitting here. Would it be good to keep and use this as a ph balanced, fresh water holding tank instead? And keep it air tight when Im not needing the water. Pump or air stone needed when doing this?

Any thoughts would be great!
Thanks,
Igeorge

 

[eyepinpools]

If you are planning to add nutrients to this water, I would wait to Ph it until after doing so. Otherwise, it is great to have a supply of water on hand. I have a 55gal with a float that is hooked to a Stealth RO that just collects water. I do not add anything to the water until I pump it to the veg or flower reservoir, and mix up the nutrients for the week.

 

[Xceptional]

If you are planning to add nutrients to this water, I would wait to Ph it until after doing so. Otherwise, it is great to have a supply of water on hand. I have a 55gal with a float that is hooked to a Stealth RO that just collects water. I do not add anything to the water until I pump it to the veg or flower reservoir, and mix up the nutrients for the week.

ditto i have the exact same setup but different brand RO.

i wouldnt mix up too much ahead of time i dont know how long they will be good. i dont think it would be a issue and res changes are more related to recirculating systems you need to look at it from a Drain to Waste perspective because that is how you are using it really.

Ebb and flow pulls the solution out the res and feeds the plants and then dumps back to the res whatever the plants dont eat/drink. you're not going to be dumping your old nutes back into this res so your res is utilized like a drain to waste res like the guys running rockwool drip systems. look for guys running systems like this and see how far in advanced they mix their nutes. the only issue is i doubt they mix to far in advanced because who keeps their nutes the same for more then a few weeks anyways without going up or down in PPM or adding or removing an additive besides the lucas formula?

in recirculating systmes res changes correct any changes in the nutrients in the res because say the plant is taking up more P then N especially with macro and micro nutes it puts those back at correct levels because with so little needed and available of these types of nutes it wouldn't be hard to have too much or too little of one (I'm no scientist just my logic). based on this fact i wouldn't use other peoples journals who have recirculating systems as a basis for how you run your res.


the only way i would premix it with more then a 2 week supply personally is if i was using a one part solution. A&B 2 part or G-M-B 3 part solutions come in separate bottles for a reason! these products react to each other and precipitate (create solids, that salt sludge you can get). again I'm no scientist but if they are separated from the factory for this reason regardless of how diluted you make them i would want to keep them separated as long as possible to prevent even the mildest reaction until my plants feed on the stuff.

 

[igeorge]

Thanks for the reply's!

I now have everything figured out on how I want to do this. I'm going to use this 55 gal res as a fresh water holding tank.

When I lock down my 55 should I have a water pump or an air stone in it? (only fresh water, no nutes)

Thanks again guys!